MindTap is an eLearning course management solution from Cengage, a digital learning content and technology provider. For educators, it includes pre-made interactive course materials (such as homework assignments, assessments, etc.), analytics around student engagement and performance, and the ability to customize courses. For students, MindTap offers a mobile app to access eBooks, flashcards, quizzes, grades, and due date reminders.
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Top Hat
Score 8.0 out of 10
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Toronto-based Top Hat offers their higher education teaching apps, comprising Top Hat Classroom supporting flipped classroom and gamified lessons, Top Hat Textbook for delivering course content, Top Hat Assignment for customizable quizzes and graded tasks or homework, and Top Hat Test for delivering secure tests with auto-grading and reporting.
We started using the application optimally at the beginning as a digital learning and consultation platform. In it we imported all kinds of bibliographic material so that students could access them with the ease of a tap. The application is perfect for those instructors who are not beginners in HTML. In that case, the application very practically allows them to create a complete course in the shortest possible time because it has a state-of-the-art instructional design. It was excellent for unifying all the basic course plans between teachers teaching the same subject, giving the advantage that all courses at the same level would have exactly the same information and nothing would be overlooked
Top Hat is well suited for courses where students are comfortable with utilizing online learning management system as part of their course contents. It is more appropriate to use Top Hat as a stand-alone learning management system or if the school happens to have it integrated to the system. It is not recommended to use Top Hat and another platform or system for students as this would be too much for students.
The biggest issue our first-time users have with Mindtap is that ad/pop-up blockers often stop the tool from opening. (Mindtap typically opens in a new window vs inside the LMS) This leads to a lot of initial frustration amongst the students early in the course.
MindTap lacks a really strong set of roles outside of Instructor and Student. There is no Teaching Assistant role or and IT/Course Builder role. Additionally setting up students workers as TAs in one course while they may be a student in another concurrently has been more than a little cumbersome.
The UI is a bit dated and it doesn't implement many responsive web design features, though this can typically be worked around by downloading the free app.
The mobile app experience is not as strong for Instructors as it is for students.
It's hard to imagine not renewing it as the professors would not want to go back to the way their courses were previously populated. The only thing that would cause us to change would be in the textbook changed and the new company offered a better tool
MindTap is the only learning software I currently use, but in the past I have used Pearson and McGraw Hill learning content. All of these companies are progresses at a similar rate and making great improvements to their educational materials. MindTap, in my opinion has the best customer service support and representatives in the business. Our rep. has been very responsive.
Top Hat generally stacks up pretty well against other industry leading or popular learning management systems. Top Hat is comparable to learning management systems used in most educational institutions. The features such as allowing the educator to create an interactive experience by leveraging tools such as quizzes and polls is comparable. Data on student performance is also a helpful feature that is comparable to that of other similar learning management systems.
The positive impact is to help students practice statistics to solve business problems.
The negative side is that the pricing might be too high compared to other free options available, even though the free options might not have the same features MindTap has.
